To Rebuild
by ferae naturae
Summary: After Emma and Shalimar's death Adam finds two teenagers who might be able to take their place...
1. Prologue I

Authors Note: This is a sequel to Pain, but you do not have to have read Pain to understand it. Those that have will recognise this prologue as the epilogue of the previous story. All previous information you need is that Emma and Shalimar have died, sentenced to death because of their mutancies. This story will not follow the same guidelines as the previous one as that was evil. I did not intend to write this story - I don't really have the time so don't expect prompt updates - but the characters I brought in simply as an epilogue to all the sadness evolved into more and I had to introduce them to you all.

Prologue I

Adam looked around him at the quiet halls of the hotel. It seemed odd being back here, in the place he had first found Shalimar. Especially now. And he felt exposed here without Jesse or Brennan to help if anything went wrong. But they were working on other projects and the owner had left a message for him once again, two young girls this time rather than one, and no frequent male visitors to leave them bruised and ashamed. Memories stirred by this return made the back of his eyes itch, threatening tears.

A door lay in front of him and he was almost surprised to see that it wasn't the same door. Knocking smartly and standing straight he waited. A teenager answered, no older than fifteen. Dark hair graced darkly tanned skin and deep brown eyes examined him quickly from head to toe. She watched him, seemingly waiting for something, with a curiosity which was so reminiscent of Shalimar's gaze he had to label her as a feral. When he offered the girl no greeting or sales pitch an eyebrow was raised in question.

"I'm Adam Kane. I'm part of a group called Mutant X, we help people with special gifts like yours. Can I came in?" A raised lip and a feral growl was his only response. At least his assessment of her mutancy was correct, only ferals could make noises like that. Perhaps the young feral couldn't talk he mused.

"Someone has told me you have a friend here who is hurt." He brought out a medical kit, noticing how she eyed it distrustfully. "Can I come in and help her."

She looked behind her into the room, voicing a soft whine. She obviously received some sort of reply as she opened the door further and stepped into the room, leaving him to close the door and follow.

Another girl, maybe a year or so younger lay on what might have once been a mattress. She was deathly pale and a large makeshift bandage was tight around her waist, stained dark with blood in one patch. The girl's light blond hair was greasy and matted, her eyes closed. Beside her there was a bowl of water with a flannel in it which the other girl had obviously been using to cool her brow.

The feral stayed close as he worked, occasionally approaching and watching what he was doing, sometimes pacing the room uncertainly. The second girl made no sound as he treated her, nor did she open her eyes. When he was finished he stepped away, watching as the feral took his place at her side, a gentle hand on her shoulder, quiet noises shared that meant nothing to him. The older girl turned to him eventually.

"She needs proper medical attention. I would like to take her to Sanctuary where I can treat her properly." Adam began.

"_We will come with you._" The voice was soft and weak in his mind and he realised that the second girl had to be a telepath. Looking past the feral he found shocking blue eyes staring back at him. Moving back over to lift the injured girl, the feral quickly moved into his path, a hand restraining him. When she was happy he would stay where instructed she turned and lifted the girl herself. Her strength was startling. The other girl, though thin, couldn't be much less than her own body weight. The blond's eyes were shut again and he realised that this was her own way of controlling her powers.

Quietly Adam lead the two out of the hotel, wondering if it was perhaps time to take on two new trainees.


	2. Prologue II

Prologue II

He opened the door to the car and waited for the two to get in. The feral stood watching him untrustingly, making no move towards the car. Sighing, Adam left the door, stepping away from the car. She continued to watch him until she was happy he was too far away to pose any threat. Satisfied she turned and sat her charge in the seat, glancing back once more before helping her settle into the safety belt, careful to avoid the wound in her side. Checking Adam once more she shut the door, nodding her silent acknowledgement and circling the car to the other side to get in herself.

When she was settled Adam got into the driver's seat and started the engine. Turning in his seat he spoke to the two.

"I need to put a visual cloak on you, to keep the location of Sanctuary safe. Can I do that?" The psionic frowned, opening her eyes to meet Adam's.

"_It covers our eyes_?"

"In a way yes, it's temporary and it won't hurt." She nodded, turning to the feral. There was a moment's silence while they shared something, the feral nodding or shaking her head in response to unheard questions. Fear was close to the surface when they had finished but she turned to Adam and nodded once briefly, holding out her hand for the devices. He obliged, handing her the two circular disks. She examined them carefully and the looked back at Adam a question in her eyes.

"They go here." He explained, tapping his temple. The feral nodded again, leaning over and brushing away a strand of hair and placing the device on the psionic's temple. She looked to Adam for conformation that she'd done it correctly and then, taking a tight grip on her friend's hand, the placed the second device on her own temple.

A moment of panic crossed her face as her eyes opened, a milky white layer covering her own brown eyes, before she quashed the emotion. Moving across the seat, she put herself in as much contact as she could be with the psionic who placed a soft kiss on her head before relaxing back into the seat, clearly exhausted. If it were possible she looked paler now than she had before and Adam turned his attention to getting the two to Sanctuary as soon as possible.

~~

They were more than half way to Sanctuary when Adam heard the commotion in the back. The psionic was quietly hushing the feral as she tried to break out of her hold. The psionic's injury was being pulled dangerously and Adam could see the pain in her eyes, knowing that in her weakened condition she was not able to hold the struggling feral. He pulled over quickly.

"The visual cloak, I have to take it off her." The psionic spoke, her voice gravely from lack of use but her powers out of reach with the cloak obscuring her eyes.

"Of course." Adam answered immediately, reaching out to remove the device but beaten to it was the telepath who quickly removed her own cloak as well.

Her eyes were feral as the cloak's effects disappeared, and the feral was sobbing quietly, seemingly unable to focus on her surroundings. Adam was beginning to wondering if perhaps the cloak had affected her more seriously when her feral eyes faded and she met the psionic's blue eyes, muttering a heavily lisped 'sorry' under her breath. Slowly her breathing came back under control, only the occasional coughing sob escaping her.

Adam watched as the psionic held the feral and wondered if he'd overestimated the feral's age. With tears on her cheeks and fear in her eyes she looked so very much younger then the blond whose arms wrapped around her. 

"What happened?" He asked quietly when the two had settled. Blue eyes met his and an image formed before his eyes. It was the feral, but younger, bound and shackled to a table in a clinically clean room empty of all but her and the table she lay on. The feral blinked rapidly, obviously unaccustomed to the bright light that lit the scene. Small whimpers were the only sound she made. The image faded and was replaced with blue eyes once more.

"_They kept her in the dark, so dark there wasn't even enough light for her feral eyes to see. They did sound tests on her, testing her feral hearing. They kept her in absolute silence and then barraged her with noises until they found one that broke her. Now she hears nothing. When they realised what they'd done to her, they changed her over to the vision tests, days in darkness with complete sensory deprivation and days where they spent hours bombarding her with light._

"In the dark she still has waking dreams of that place, though it has been years since we escaped from there." She glanced back at the feral who was now curled up on the seat, shaking violently. Adam turned away.

"She's not going to see anything from down there." He told the blond. "Can you put your cloak back on and we'll get you both to Sanctuary as quickly as possible." She nodded her consent, placing the device back on her temple and moving closer to the shaking feral.

~~

~~

If you want more I need story lines. I have the next couple of chapters, introducing the two to Sanctuary and Jesse and Brennan and a little more history, but from then on I'm stuck. Help!


	3. Part I

Part I

Adam breathed a sigh of relief as he drew into the garage of Sanctuary. The feral had stopped shaking not long into the journey but had remained low in the seat, obligingly staring at the floor the rest of the way to Sanctuary. Getting out of his seat he rounded the car to open the psionic's door. Reaching out to remove the psionic's optical cloak he found a hand around his wrist. Looking into his eyes the feral shook her head slowly and moved his hand. She took off the device and offered the psionic a small smile, nodding as she closed her eyes and rested back against the headrest. The feral held a hand out to Adam - palm out - a silent request to stay where he was. Adam stopped her as she reached the other side of the car, a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, curious.

"Let me carry her, you're in no fit state." He said, hoping she would understand. She made no reply, only shrugged off his hand and pushed past him. "Can you ask her please?" He asked the psionic over her head.

"She lip-reads, she knows what you said." She relied verbally, eyes still shut. "But she won't let you touch me if it isn't necessary."

"Why not?"

"She wasn't the only one to be tested on all those years ago." Adam nodded as the feral stood with the other girl in her arms once more. He was unsatisfied with the answer but he could almost visibly see the blond's strength waning and knew he would have to wait for answers.

Leading the two once more, he took them into the medilab, gesturing for the feral to lay the psionic on the bed. He moved to her side to remove the heavy coat she wore, to allow the machine better access but paused, frowning as the psionic visibly tensed. He stepped away, turning to the feral once more.

"Her jacket, it needs to be taken off." She frowned at him, not understanding. "Can you do it, so I don't touch her?" It was more a question than anything else, he wasn't sure if it was his touch, the environment or him personally that the psionic reacted to, but a smile spread over her face and she moved to his side, lifting the psionic gently from the bed so that she could slip off the jacket. The job done he moved back over to the machine. It took only seconds to set up the scan, and Adam turned back before he started. "There will be a bright light." He warned the feral, who was still watching him intently. She nodded briefly, but still jumped, started, away from the bed as the beam shot out of the machine in the ceiling. She clutched the coat close to her chest, muttering what sounded like reassurances to the psionic, though who she was reassuring was questionable.

Turning away to scan over the results; Adam nodded, satisfied. The wound was clean and would heal well. With rest the girl would be back on her feet in no time. He looked up as the computer beeped at him, it wanted a name to save the data under. Looking up he realised, startled that he had no idea what the names of these two new mutants were. He chided himself, normally he would know the names of the new mutants before he went after them, but he hadn't know who these two were and he hadn't even thought about asking their names when he had met them. Too many other things on his mind. Turning, he smiled seeing the psionic's eyes open, the two communicating silently.

"What are your names?" He asked when the feral glanced up. "I need them for the computer."

"I am Sharon. My friend is Eber." The psionic answered for the two of them.

"Eber?"

"It is the only name she knows."

"Is it the name her parents gave her?"

"If she has parents she does not know of them." Adam nodded it was the same with many new mutants.

"OK, Sharon and Eber it is then." Typing quickly, he set up two new identities in the medical files and started up a search in the database under the two names. "Lay still for a minute please." He asked as he set up the second beam to begin knitting the damaged tissue. A red beam this time descended from the machine, covering the small area over her abdomen where the wound was several times over. When it was finished Adam scanned Sharon again with a simple analytical beam. Her DNA was remarkably stable for a new mutant, although it showed signs of strangely regular stresses in the recent past. He wondered if perhaps this was due to the experiences she had mentioned. The computer estimated her age as fourteen.

"You can take the bandage off now." He told Eber as he checked off the last few pieces of information. She frowned but complied, seemingly unconvinced, but looked on in shock as the dressing came away with little resistance, the skin underneath nothing more than a little bruised. She grinned up at him, gratitude clear on her face. "You're next." He said, moving over to the side of the bed. He had to restrain himself as he found himself reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder. He hadn't realised how much the time he had spent with Shalimar had changed him, reassurance through touch had always been something she had used and it had obviously rubbed off on him. He withdrew his hand, stepping back to recover his control, unwanted tears threatening. Clearing his throat he looked up into two pairs of worried eyes. A question mark appeared in his thoughts and the imagery made him smile.

"I'm sorry." He sighed. A hand was offered, pale and with a slight shake. He looked into Sharon's blue eyes once more a question in his own eyes.

"_Take it. I can explain better that way._" Blue eyes spoke. He wondered absently why her mental voice had a different accent to her spoken voice as he reached out and took her hand.

~~

~~

Apologies for the late addition of names. Still have no idea where this story is going, all reviews welcome.


	4. Part II

Part II

He was stood within a whirl of motion. He could feel it, but resisted opening his eyes, wondering where he would find himself. A soft laugh caught his attention and he opened his eyes reluctantly. He was stood toe to toe, face to face with the young psionic. It felt wrong somehow and, looking away from her he found himself entrapped within a swirling vortex of some kind. His head swam as he tried to follow one individual out of the many entities that made up the movement encircling the two of them. He looked back at the psionic.

"What is this?"

"This is your mind. Part of it, anyway. Memories mainly." She held out her hand and whispered 'slow' to the noisy hoard that surrounded them. And they slowed, revealing themselves as flat panels of light, each containing a picture, moving of its own accord within its frame. They still moved too fast for him to focus on their individual images, but within the glances of what they held he saw his own life unfold. He reached out to touch one as it sped past but Sharon took hold of his hand before he could reach it. "Don't." She warned. "It is best that you know where you're going before you try that."

"Where? What do you mean by that?"

"If you touch it, you will become an observer to the memory that the window shows. Everyone has a room of memories like this. Only by bringing you in here with me can I control them and keep them at bay. Without you here they would swamp me."

"If I touched you without warning you wouldn't be able to control what you saw." She nodded briefly.

"It was part of my objective during the testing, to see if I could select information from a subject at will without their consent. It's easy with consent, with you here I could find just about every memory you possess. But without you present your memories are just a barrage of information. If I find what I'm looking for it is just by chance." Sharon gasped as a memory slipped past a little closer than the others. She held out a hand and it stopped, wavering and flickering in front of her. "This one stays close to you, it's in the past yet it haunts your present." She observed, examining it as if willing it to reveal its secrets. Adam turned to look at the image, his breath catching as he saw the picture that hovered there. The picture was silent, but he knew the sounds that accompanied it, the soft music that Shalimar had chosen that day.

"Emma and Shalimar." He sighed under his breath. "When Emma first arrived at Sanctuary she was unfocused, scared of her own abilities. These exercises," He gestured to the picture, "Were something that helped Shalimar obtain focus when she first arrived here, and she offered to teach them to Emma." Adam reached out to the image as if he would touch it, but drew away at the last moment. "They both taught us so much." Sharon frowned as another image was called up, stopping alongside the first. In it two simple coffins lay side by side. Adam flinched and turned away, not wanting to see more. They had been forced to bury them on Sanctuary island, the only place they could be sure they would remain undisturbed by protestors, press and the overly curious. No church yard would take them, no public cemetery.

Adam was startled out of his thoughts by a change in the movement around him, once more the images whirled out of control as the edges seemed to ripple and spread, allowing a space through which Eber stepped. She looked around her curiously for a moment before turning to Sharon. "You need to pull him out." She said. Adam started as she spoke unexpectedly. She turned to him a moment, rolling her eyes. "I do not speak because I do not hear, not because I do not think." She growled at him as the world around them all faded and he found himself releasing Sharon's hand back in the medilab.

Pulling himself out of his daze he looked up, finding Eber's head on Sharon's shoulder, both of their eyes still shut. He wondered if he should clear his throat or something, but settled for moving over to the computer to check the search results. Nothing had come up on the young feral, but it wasn't unexpected. There were many young ferals around and they were very hard to keep track of. There was a result for Sharon though. Psionic, post-cognitive and telepathic. Two parents who died in a car crash. She wasn't present for the event. Passed onto foster care but the records died out pretty quickly after that. Lost along with so many other children on a blank page.

He looked up from the records as movement caught his eye. Sharon, leaning heavily on Eber, was walking over to him.

"Eber says there's someone else here. In this place."

"In Sanctuary?" At her nod, Adam turned back to the console, calling up several security systems and schematics. Checking the codes used to access the doors he smiled. "Jesse's home."

~~

~~

This is going very slowly, please give ideas!


	5. Part III

AN: so sorry about the slow update, terrible writer's black with this story, I think I have it back under control but impending exams are weighing on my time. I'll keep updating when I have time.

Part III

Jesse sighed, shrugging out of his coat and throwing it inaccurately at the back of his chair, watching sullenly as it dropped onto the floor. That just about summed up the week he'd had. He was tired and bothered and he had a killer headache. More than anything he was tired, bone weary. He'd felt the same way ever since Emma and Shalimar's death, like there was less energy in his world. Adam had sent he and Brennan away on a couple of weeks working on individual projects shortly after they had gotten into an argument that ended in blows. The success of the piece of technology he had been working on just hadn't given him the rise he had expected, and his inability to save the two New Mutant kids, the young Asian girl and the bouncy blond, that he had run into in his last couple of days off had haunted him.

He grabbed a clean set of clothes, hoping to change before Adam returned from where ever he was. The note he had left pinned to the door had been brief, not specifying when he had left or when he intended to return. Looking about him Jesse realised that he was incredibly happy to be home. He would never get over the loss of his friends, but maybe he could learn to move past it.

"Jesse." Adam spoke into the comm. system.

"Hey Adam, where are you?" Jesse responded after a moment's pause.

"I'm in the medilab. I hadn't realised you were back."

"I only just got in, there was a note on the door saying you were out."

"Sorry about that, I got distracted and forgot to take it down. We have company, could you join us in the lab when you're ready?"

"Sure Adam, I'm just cleaning up, I'll be right down."

Smiling, and quietly very glad to hear the sound of the molecular's voice after the two weeks he'd been away, Adam turned back to the two visitors.

"Well, while we're waiting for Jesse we might as well get you checked out Eber." He could almost visibly see Eber pale as she glanced back at the table that took up the middle of the room. Gesturing for Sharon to sit in the chair on the edge of the room, Adam led Eber back to the medical chair.

"Bright lights." Eber murmured under her breath as she lay back on the chair, still watching Adam cautiously.

"Yes." He agreed. "Are you Ok?" She nodded briefly, shutting her eyes. The beam scanned over her quickly and the results began scrolling up onto the screen, but Adam's attention was pulled away from the readouts as Jesse walked into the room. He looked tired, but much better than he had when Adam had sent them away for some time alone. He hoped he'd had time to reorganise things. Mutant X needed to get back out there, and soon. Too many people knew about the position they were now in. It had been a risk sending them away in the first place, but a discordant team was worse than no team at all.

Before he could greet Jesse, Eber was up from the chair, balancing on it's end as if ready to dive off it at the room's new occupant. Jesse to a step back, hands outstretched in anticipation of the feral's attack. Sharon too, Adam noticed, looked tense as if expecting an attack from the molecular. 

Jesse obviously recognised the two as his defensiveness was replaced by a wry grin of recognition that baffled Adam completely.

"Sharon, Eber, Jesse is a friend, he won't hurt you." Adam reassured. Eber's eyes hadn't left Jesse's face, but he hoped Sharon would be able to pass the message along. She apparently could, as the feral gave her a glance and then sat back into the chair, though her posture lost none of its stiffness. "Jesse?" He questioned.

"I saved these two's lives." He laughed wryly, seeming almost amazed about it himself.

"They don't seem to recognise that." Adam warned.

"Isn't it always the way?" Adam didn't refute the comment. So many of the new mutants they had tried to rescue had turned down their offers of help or accused them of bringing the trouble to them in the first place, but he knew there was something different about this situation.

"Care to explain?"

"I got the machine working, but it was calibrated to detect my bio-signature as mutant, I needed to test it on someone other than me. I wasn't ready to come back here yet, so I took it out into the streets, figuring I'd find someone eventually. I found these two, nice clear marks on the map. What I didn't realise was that they were being followed by the GSA. I caught up with them and helped them fight the goons off, but they disappeared before I could talk to them. I thought that the GSA had taken them."

"That's not how it happened." Sharon retorted. "You arrived with the others, we were barely able to fight you off. The men who attacked us knew you, had memories of you, you were one of them. Eber only just managed to get us both out after one of the men stabbed me." Sharon's hand went to the now-healed wound on her side as she shared an angry glance with Eber who nodded quietly, agreeing with her assessment.

"Of course they knew me, most GSA agents come up against Mutant X as some point in their career. If not, they're still trained to know us on sight. Granted some of them aren't very good at it, but..." Jesse struggled to find some way to prove this to the psionic. "Wait, you're a psionic aren't you? What's your power, can you find out for yourself?" Sharon frowned and looked back at Eber.

"You'll pull me out?" She asked quietly, smiling at Eber's nod. Adam wondered why she had spoken verbally to Eber, but realised she was simply allowing all of them to hear what she was saying, making sure there was no doubt about their communications. Not that he understood what she meant, but he assumed Eber would understand and be able to carry out her request. Reaching out her hand, she offered it to Jesse. He frowned a moment, and then took her hand as if shaking it. Adam watched as a dazed look fell over Jesse's face like a curtain. He seemed to look around him, eyes blank and unseeing, at something moving past him at speed. He remembered his own 'room' and sympathised. Glancing back at Eber he found her watching Sharon steadily, not paying any attention to Jesse's wonder. He wondered what 'pulling' Sharon out might entail.

Jesse watched with curiosity as the crowd around him slowed at Sharon's command. There were millions of squares, like building blocks, and inside each he could see a different memory from his past. Sharon was looking out into the mass and he watched as she called two frames forward, and looked into them curiously. The first, he could see, was him following the GSA into the alleyway where they had cornered the two new mutants, a moving shadow betrayed their presence, the GSA moving in. The second was another of him fighting the GSA, but this one was an old memory, from early in the days of Mutant X. He grinned widely at Sharon as it showed, quite clearly, all four Mutant X team members fighting against the GSA and one of the faces - before it was obscured by a round-house kick from Shalimar - could be seen to be one of those present in the other memory. There had been a reason one of the GSA had recognised him, they'd been defeated by Mutant X before.

Seeing that Sharon was unconvinced, Jesse looked away as she began to sort through other memories; marvelling at the room around him. Seeing a familiar face zooming past he reached out, not hearing Sharon's cry to stop, and was whisked away into an all to familiar setting.


	6. Part IV

Spoilers for Fool for Love, Shock of the New (hopefully they are recognisable as such) and Pain (in the sense that if you intend to read it and haven't yet, you should read it before this chapter.) Thanks for the reviews.

Part IV

Jesse felt a sickening lurch, like a roller coaster dropping from the very peak of a climb. The world blurred around him as he fell backwards. He was caught at the last minute by some kind of pillar at his back. Realising that the world had become more or less stationary again, Jesse looked around and found himself in an all-to-familiar setting.

Emma was stood across from him, leaning against the stairs of the dojo. Brennan sat just above her on the stairs themselves. Both looked down at the floor as if it held some great intrigue for them. He closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to see the scene behind him. He knew exactly what he would see; the image had stuck with him long after this day. Even after Shalimar had gathered her pieces and come bouncing back to them with a smile which, though forced at first, had slowly worked its way up to its previous brilliance.

Breathing in deeply, he opened his eyes again and turned, leaning around the dojo's support pillar. It was just as he remembered it, Shalimar lying beside the still water of the meditation pool, Adam at her side trying to offer some quiet platitude. Her heart had almost visibly broken that day, when Richard had died with his hand in hers. And he had been haunted for weeks after by the fear that it might have been his fault. He had wished Richard dead with such anger when he had found that the stranger might be taking Shalimar away from them, from him. And his relief, even during Shalimar's pain, that she would be staying with him had dragged him even further down.

There was a flicker to one side of him as Sharon stepped out of thin air. He began to form a question, but his head felt heavy as if her were being dragged down. He saw her - distantly as if looking to the other end of a tunnel - cry out 'NO' and reach out to catch him, but before she could reach him he fell again, the support of the pillar disappearing from behind him. He seemed to fall for a long time, but when he landed it was quietly and gently.

He landed in a quiet alleyway, no sign of Sharon around him. He turned and found a frozen tableau playing out before him. Emma turned to him, a silent question, a request for assurance in her eyes. Smiling he nodded, yes, we're here to help you, trust us. Adam and Shalimar stood nearby, waiting for her decision. Adam had said his piece, done all he could, Shalimar was still stood tense, wary of other attackers. Would she join them? Would she run? She had turned to him for advice, trusted him with the decision. What had she seen in him that he could not, to trust him so implicitly? Had he failed her? He couldn't drag his eyes away from that frightened face.

He was inside now, Sanctuary. Shalimar was there, again frozen in place like some kind of photograph. But it was an old memory, she was younger, a little more wild. Her posture showed distrust - he hadn't seen it and wouldn't have recognised it when he was younger, when he was here the first time, but now he could read the feral's body language as clearly as if they had spoken. Neither of them had trusted the other in the beginning. He was an intruder in her territory and she was determined to make him leave. He was so defensive neither of them could talk to each other. But somehow, without either of them really noticing it, they became stronger than any brother or sister. She protective of him - she was the only one who could bully him - he worrying for her when she threw herself into unknown dangers, watching out for the things she might not have seen.

And he was sitting in the back of a hall, on wooden chairs. Sharon was sat beside him and he couldn't help but jump at her presence.

"I thought you'd end up here eventually." She said, seemingly unperturbed by his appearance.

"How did..." He seemed finally to take in their surroundings and noted that this image had noise and motion, unlike the others. "Oh, no."

"I'm sorry, but at least once this is over you can go back."

"What do you mean 'once this is over', get me out of here now!"

"I can't do that."

"Why the hell not? I can't go through this again."

"I can't stop it, not until it's finished. If I pull you out now this memory will stay high in your consciousness. You'll dream about it, you'll have flashbacks, it will drive you mad. It's bad enough when the memory is a good one. This might kill you." His eyes widened and he nodded.

"I guess it will teach me for touching things I shouldn't." He joked quietly, watching as people began to flood around them into the hall.

ProxyBlue - though few would recognise the quiet red-head and her camera-man as the acidic sym. - took a seat near to them. All of the other reporters, come to see the two notorious mutants 'apprehended at last' by the authorities, were stood outside the large room, frozen where they stood and would wake once it was over. They would not see the new mutants - the only observers besides ProxyBlue - entering or leaving the room, nor would they see the three remaining members of Mutant X leave with tears in their eyes to take their friends home for the last time.

Jesse had tears in his eyes before the two were lead in. He winced again, though he had seen it before, as Emma stumbled and was yanked upright by the guard pulling her along. Shalimar looked tired, he noted, as though she'd spent more than one long night awake. A bruise marred her forehead imperfectly hidden by her hair. Emma's cheeks showed the signs of tears, but her eyes were dry now and her jaw set.

He had to look away then. Unable to relive that last moment. When Sharon touched his shoulder and the room faded around him he looked up. He was back in the room full of memories, still swirling around him. Eber was there, waiting and frowning.

"Are you OK? I couldn't get in." She said as soon as they were fully there.

"Yes, we're coming back now." Sharon reassured her, smiling at Jesse as he wiped at his eyes and nodded. He let out a breath as the room dissolved around them, leaving him stood in the medical lab, releasing Sharon's hand.

"Are you OK?" Adam asked as he shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness that remained. "You were in there for a long time."

"He touched a panel and started jumping. I couldn't control where he went so I had to wait for him. It could have been a lot longer if he'd decided to take another route." Sharon said, offering Jesse a small smile. 

"Jumping?" Adam asked.

"Going from one memory to another. Not everyone does it, some people will look at one memory - the one they touched - and stop there. Others can be impossible to stop. With Eber's help it is easier to pull people out of memories. She... unbalances things. It pulls us back towards the centre." She explained.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Jesse asked.

"I think you can be trusted." Sharon nodded, smiling.

"Oh good."

AN: Soz, this is an odd place to leave it, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the next chapter so we'll see.

I have a message for Sky One, on behalf of UK viewers. UP YOURS! We have been left without MX for the second time this season (replaced by KIRSTY!!!) and you don't seem to be giving it back this time! So, there you go. The reason for anything I might have overlooked from the show.


	7. Part V

AN: This was an idea from my Dad saying I should revise more through my fanfic because I spend so much time on it anyway. So all science in here SHOULD be accurate. Hope I don't bore you and don't despair if none of it makes sense, I've tried to put it in layman's terms but it's all a load of BS anyway!

Part V

After finding beds for Sharon and Eber for the night, Adam headed back to the lab to check over the information from Eber's scan. He was surprised to see that the computer judged her age as only 12. He had misjudged her age quite drastically. That meant she was the younger of the two. That meant she had been only10, 11 at most when they had escaped from the place that they had been held captive. He needed to know more, but questions could wait until the psionic had rested. Tomorrow perhaps.

He looked over his shoulder as Jesse entered, eating something unrecognisable.

"Jesse, come have a look at this..." He called him over.

"What am I looking at?" Jesse asked.

"This is the young feral's genetics, I've only just had a chance to look over them. You can see here..." He outlined a small section of the twisting code. "And here, these are the typical feline feral codes. But this here, this is strange. In another feral, this would be the area that codes for the feline _tapetum lucidum_, the part that enhances their night vision and makes their eyes seem to glow, but it's been changed to junk, it doesn't code for anything any more. And here as well, this is the gene for rhodopsin, the chemical that allows us to see in the dark, but it's been de-activated, and it looks like it's been done on purpose."

"What does that mean?"

Well, effectively that she has limited night vision, even compared to you or me, and what she sees through her feral eyes is likely to be of worse quality that through her human eyes."

"Why would anyone do that on purpose?"

"I don't... hang on a minute..." Adam turned back to the image, enlarging a section. "It can't be..." He muttered to himself. Jesse knew better than to interupt him while he was working and so he watched on as Adam pulled up another image and enlarged the same section on that one. Jesse looked over the two sections on the screen. They looked very similar, although he could see that the genes that Adam had pointed out as tampered with in the young feral were in tact in the new image.

"They forced her to adapt." Adam murmured, seemingly having forgotten Jesse completely.

"Adam?" He asked.

"Do you see this here?" Again Adam pointed out a section of the code in the first box. At jesse's nod he continued. "Well, I thought I recognised it and it just came to me where from. This..." He brought the new image into the foreground. "Is a scan of Shalimar's DNA." He winced but contined. "This section is in the same area as you can see at the moment in Eber's scan, and this is the part of Shalimar's DNA which changed when she mutated a couple of months ago. They're almost exactly the same."

"When she mutated she gained the ability to fight without seeing or hearing her opponent." Jesse nodded, finally understanding. "They forced her DNA to mutate to keep herself safe."

"I don't think they meant to damage her hearing but I think, whoever 'they' were, they tampered with these genes to see if she could adapt."

"And she did."

"It seems so."

"What we can do is try and re-activate the genes which have been tampered with and start restoring her eyesight." Adam explained to Sharon, as they sat and watched Jesse with Eber at the computer. They were preparing a holographic opponent for Eber to fight, Jesse explaining something in quick fluidic hand movements. Finding that Jesse knew sign-language was a revelation even to Adam, but though he claimed to be a little out of practice he seemed to have caught up quickly enough. "And then we can see if we can't do something about her hearing."

"_You can fix that?_"

"Yes. It'll take some time but it should be worth it. Even if we can only get her some hearing back it would be better than what she has at the moment. I'd like to ask her first of course. Get her permission." Sharon looked quietly on, nodding. There was a silence and Sharon continued, almost whispering. 

"_Sometimes I wonder if she would have been better off if I had left her there, with them. She would have been fed properly, and she would have at least been safe. They didn't work us too hard, we got exercise. They fed us properly. She used to get weak sometimes, when there wasn't much food about. I mean fall-down weak, like she couldn't even keep her own body weight up. Why is that? Why can I live on less food than she can, surely because she's stronger she should be OK for longer?_"

"As a feral she has a higher metabolism." Adam provided. "She needs more food for her size than most humans do, to keep up the pace." Sharon sighed. "And I think you're wrong. I don't think she could have been any safer than with you. If you had left without her, goodness knows what they would have done to her next." Sharon nodded and turned away from Adam, looking out again into the main hall where Eber was now being shown how to battle the holograms in the dojo. When she spoke again tears were trailing her face, strangely inaudible in her telepathic words.

"_It's my fault Adam. It's my fault she can't remember._"

"What do you mean? What can't she remember?" He asked.

"_When I told you she can't remember her parents - that isn't all she doesn't remember. It was a kind of test, for me. The tests they already had her in would take time and she was free until something happened with those, so they put her in for other things. They wanted to see what kind of memory suppressants I could break through. But I couldn't. I can't do it and I've been trying. There are walls around her memories and I can't break them down. For her it's like her life started the day she woke up in that horrid dark cell. She doesn't remember sound, she was deaf before they did it to her. I had prepared a way to escape by then but I couldn't leave her there, on her own. I took her with me so I could keep trying to help her._" Adam sat silently for a moment, thinking.

"When did she learn sign-language and to lip-read?" He asked finally. "Because I don't think these people were the kind to take the time to think about that kind of thing?"

"_We found a school._" She smiled, and he could hear the smile in her words. "_We couldn't stay as long as I had hoped, but it was long enough for her to learn to lip-read and sign. I tried to learn to sign, but she picked it up so much faster than I did, she ended up teaching me the rest after we had left. At least then we could communicate outside of her mind. At the time I was much more wary of the telepathy, it takes a lot of concentration and I wasn't sure I could control it. But eventually we found it was easier._"

"Why did you have to leave?"

"_They found us. They'd followed us to the place we were staying. Our pictures were in the paper and someone turned us in. We only just got away in time._"

"Do you know who it was, that held you captive, that did these tests on you?"

"_No, we never saw anyone other than the scientists working on us. Most of the time Eber didn't even have that, they stood behind reflective glass so she couldn't see them. We know the faces of the men who are out to take us back, but we've managed to avoid them for a while now. We never stay anywhere long._"

"What about now? What if we offered you a place to stay?"


	8. Part VI

AN: I have to apologise for the confusion with the character's ages, having reread what I've written even I would be confused. So to clarify: Sharon is fourteen and Eber is twelve. Originally Adam estimated Eber's age as older than that but he was proved wrong.

****

The Science: For anybody who's interested, this is a little bit of science, everyone else ignore me. If this helps revision it was worth it! Rhodopsin is a chemical that allows us to see in the dark. Also known as Visual Purple Rhodopsin would cause the feral's eyes and vision to appear yellow (or yellow-green) tinted because the feral's retina has a much higher percentage of Rod cells (which contain Rhodopsin) that a human. (so well researched by the show!) Rhodopsin is made up of opsin and cis-retinal. A photon of light hitting a molecule of Rhodopsin will cause the cis-retinal to become trans-retinal which means opsin can no longer bond to it and Rhodopsin breaks down. This causes a generator potential in the rod cell that synapses with a sensory neurone. Rod cells are better adapted for dim light vision as they carry out retinal convergence with the sensory neurone, several receptors meeting one neurone. This means that even the smallest of generator potentials can join with several other potentials to form a full impulse in the sensory neurone.

The feline _tapetum lucidum_ is a layer of reflective cells on the retina that makes any light that enters the eye to reflect back and forth several times to allow maximum absorption by the light-sensitive retina. Any escaping light is the cause of eye-shine and I can only assume this is why the show made feral eyes 'glow' as they do. It increases their quality of vision in dim conditions but DOES NOT ALLOW THEM TO SEE IN THE DARK! Cats can't see in the dark, only in very dim conditions where light is at a minimum.

Thanks for allowing me to talk a load of **** and I promise it won't happen too often.

Part VI

"You know she once asked me what it was like, having a family. I don't know if she was ever with her family. I only know what little about her was written in the records that they gave me to help me work. They made sure there was never enough to make it look like I had restored her memory, but it meant I had nothing to tell her about her past. All I know is that she was very young when the records started. I didn't know what to tell her, none of my experiences of families were pleasant. So I lied to her. I told her tales of family dinners and warm fires, presents at Christmas and balloons on Birthdays. She didn't believe me. 'Nothing could be that perfect' she said. This is the first place I've seen it for real.

"In your memories, and even now there is such love. You were a family, a family like the ones we dreamt of." She stopped for a moment, looking out again to Eber on the dojo, Jesse nearby watching. "We will never be them, you know that. We will never fill the space they have left in your family."

"You are too wise for your years."

"It was forced upon us." Adam sighed, thinking carefully about what she had said, acknowledging the wisdom in it.

"You may not be able to replace Shalimar and Emma, but the team needs a psionic and a feral and you need training. If it's not what you want then at least stay long enough for me to treat Eber, if that's what she wants. Then we can set you up in the underground where you'll be safe." Sharon nodded.

"We'll see shall we?"

"I'm going to warn you now, before we start, that this is not going to be comfortable. As the beam scans over you you'll feel like you're very hot, almost like it's burning you. It won't hurt you, but you'll not feel too good. OK?" Eber nodded. "There's not going to be any immediate results because all that this is doing is fixing the changes that have been made, your body will need time to start producing the right chemicals again, but in about two weeks we should start seeing some changes." At Eber's nod he moved over to the console. Hitting the activation key he watched as the beam began scanning from her ankles. At first it felt to Eber that she had stepped into a hot puddle, the heat seeping into her feet and legs quickly and warming her from the inside out. At her knees it felt strangely safe, like pulling a favourite blanket over herself after the chill outdoors. But as the beam continued to rise up her body the heat began to overwhelm her, flushing her cheeks, bringing tears to her eyes. It felt like fire on her stomach, or like scalding water. It seemed to stream down her sides in rivulets, only touching her back as it pooled beneath her. She knew she cried out as she saw the pain in Sharon's eyes as she surged forward, Adam holding her back so that the beam didn't hurt her. She fought to calm herself, knowing that the beam wouldn't hurt her, telling herself of the good it would do her. The use of her feral eyes - previously a mystery, completely useless and reducing her eyesight in the best of circumstances - and the enhancement of a useful sense, this could mean everything to her. If only she could endure the heat. Her breathing became more laboured as she tried to fight the restriction that seemed to press down on her chest; her eyesight fuzzed at the edges as oxygen became scarce. She didn't see Adam change something on the computer having seen her distress, but she felt a little of the pressure relax. The chill of the room, though not excessive, seemed arctic to the treated skin and she began to shiver even as the beam continued to scorch her shoulders and neck. Though the feeling of the treatment had been uncomfortable on her body, the effect on her face was twice as bad. Every breath she took through the beam was agony and seemed to burn her nostrils up into her head, making it pound heavily until she thought the vessels carrying blood through her temples might explode with the sheer force of the beating.

But then it was over and she was shivering with the chill, a blanket wrapped round her shoulders went unnoticed as she fell into a quiet unconsciousness.

When she woke again, Eber found herself in a strange room. This was not the same room she had shared with Sharon the night before, she knew, but with the lights off she could know little else. She felt her feral eyes take over and went to close her eyes and shake off the annoying side affect of her mutation. The yellow eyes did nothing to aid her in times of high adrenaline or dark environments when they seemed most often to appear, only reducing the very little she could see in dim light or shadowing her sight when the light was good. She had long learned to suppress their appearance quickly for her own safety, but what she saw in that moment before her lids closed stopped her short. At the appearance of her feral eyes the room around her, though she had seen that it had been dark, was no longer the all-encompassing black she had come to expect. Quite the opposite, it seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence in a way she had never seen before - at least not that she remembered.

Quickly locating the room's door - an almost bright portal in the darkness - she exited the room. Outside it was brighter and the feral eyes faded, leaving Eber missing the yellow world that she was only beginning to explore. But what she saw next surprised her further still. She was used to a clear-cut line between the light and the dark, where the light was something of the day or the light-bulb that showed her the world around her and dark was everything else. A black time where everything was invisible to her and only Sharon's words in her mind could reach her. But here nothing was so plain. There was nothing light about what she saw around her, but a scale of darkness that she could have never believed, ranging from the black she expected through countless other shades.

Intrigued she walked the corridors quickly, heading for Adam's lab.


	9. Part VII

AN: As advised, sign language is now represented as [square brackets] to make it easier to identify.

Part VII

She quickly found Jesse sitting beneath the dojo, watching the water of the meditation pool. Small flames from floating candles lit his face and cast an orange glow about the whole room. She sat beside him, watching the rippling lights move across his face as he thought. She wasn't sure if he had noticed her but eventually he looked up and smiled.

[Good morning.] He signed.

[What time is it?] She asked. He checked his watch carefully as if he had problems focusing.

[Three O'clock.] He replied. He looked back out at the water, sighing before turning back to the young feral. "It's strange. They seem so much closer when I'm here. Sanctuary is filled with them. No wonder I can't sleep." She didn't bother asking who he was talking about. Questions she wanted to ask lost importance as she saw Jesse's pain, moving closer so she could rest a hand on his shoulder, offering what little assurances she could. He seemed to shake himself out of it after a moment, pulling himself back to the present and turning back to face her. [How are you?] He asked. [How are your eyes?] She frowned.

[I wasn't supposed to expect fast results, but what I see...] She paused, trying to find words adequate to describe it, but he seemed to understand, grinning widely.

[It hasn't been as fast as you think, you've been asleep for longer than you know.] He explained. [You slept for almost three days.] She gaped, confused.

[How?] She asked.

[You were suffering from fatigue. Adam was annoyed that he didn't see it, but he didn't have anything to compare you to, any old records he could look at. I'm surprised you woke up that morning, let alone surviving an hour of training on the dojo. How long did you stay awake with Sharon before Adam arrived?] Eber thought about his question for a moment.

[I didn't sleep after the fight. Sharon was hurt and I was so scared she might leave me and I wouldn't know. I couldn't sleep.]

[Three days ago.] Jesse confirmed.

[The owner came in after a while, he had keys to the room. He said she was screaming and I hadn't realised, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't take her to a hospital. He just kept trying to get to her. I showed him my eyes, when they change colour,] Jesse nodded his understanding. [It was stupid, but I was scared and I didn't have anyone to talk for me. I expected him to run away but he just said something about a Doctor and left. He must have meant Adam, but I didn't know that at the time. I knew Sharon couldn't be moved. I thought that was it, I thought we were going back.]

[Going back?]

[To the place where we were before. Where they did experiments on us. I don't remember much of that place before Sharon and I escaped, but they kept me in the dark and with nobody else, only Sharon sometimes.] She shuddered. [Is Sharon OK?] Jesse smiled at her concern.

[She's fine, she's completely healed now and Adam's been trying to teach her about her,] Jesse paused, as far as he knew there was no sign for what he wanted to say. Eventually he settled on [Gift.] She nodded, reassured. They sat in companionable silence for a while, each thinking their own thoughts.

Eber started as a shadow in the corner of her vision shifted and she looked up. Calling Jesse's attention to the movement both of them stood, moving in silence over to the door that had opened.


	10. Part VIII

Part VIII

AN: [ ] = sign language

Adam walked into the medilab to find Eber holding a tissue to a bloody nose and Brennan with a bag of ice resting on the large bruise forming on his chin.

"What happened?" He gasped.

"Brennan was a little over enthusiastic in welcoming Eber to Sanctuary." Jesse offered.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know they she was on our side?" Brennan demanded.

"So you'd attack any feral you found in Sanctuary?"

"She flashed her eyes at me!"

"She was dark and she was trying to find out who you were. You can't blame her for defending herself." Eber had given up on following the fast paced argument and lay back on the bed closing her eyes. A touch on her shoulder made her open them again.

"You need to stay upright." Adam advised. "So you don't swallow the blood." She nodded, sitting back up and checking on Jesse and Brennan. They were still arguing, seemingly oblivious of the others in the room.

"Is it broken?" Adam asked as she turned back. "Your nose." He repeated, seeing his questioning look. "Is it broken?" She shrugged. "Is it still bleeding heavily?" She moved the tissue and dabbed at it for a moment and then shook her head. "Lay back and let me scan it. It won't take a second. It's nice to see you awake by the way." She grinned.

[Thanks.] She signed before lying back again.

[You're welcome.] He signed back. She shot upright, her expression saying everything words could not.

"Though you may have been sleeping we have not. Jesse and Sharon have been teaching me." He smiled. "Now lay back so I can scan you." The beam sped quickly over her face and Adam checked over the results before turning back to her.

[Do you know much?] She asked, curious.

[Your nose is... fine.] He replied slowly. [Your eyes...] He stumbled trying to find an equivalent. "Are nearly fully restored." He settled for saying.

[Good.] She grinned.

"Thank you." Seeing that Brennan and Jesse seemed to have finished their argument and were now at opposite ends of the room sulking, Adam turned back to them.

"Welcome home Brennan. It's been very quiet without you."

"Thanks Adam." He replied a little gruffly.

"Now I think we should all go back to bed for at least another hour. Even you, young lady, otherwise your body clock will be all put out."

Expecting to be filled with energy after her extended sleep she was surprised when she woke later that morning to find light streaming into the room and Sharon already gone. She woke with a feeling of expectancy, a tingling in her fingertips and buzzing in the back of her skull. Sitting up in bed she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, preparing herself for the coming day. Even as she began to rise she was caught by a thought, as you would be caught by a smell or the sight of something moving out of the corner of your eye. She stopped, trying to find it again.

"_Eber..._" The word whispered through her raising the hairs on the back of her arms.

"_Sharon?_" She replied. "_How...?_"

"_The dojo_." The whisper replied before fading, leaving her feeling cold. Opening her eyes she made her way quickly out to the dojo. There she found Adam and Sharon sitting on the edge of the structure, she met Sharon's eyes quickly.

"_How?_"

"_Magic_." She grinned. "_Adam's been training me_." She explained at the roll of Eber's eyes. "_It's hard, and I can't hear you. But you heard?_"

"_Yes, and I felt it. You woke me_." Sharon's eyes widened.

"_Really? How are you feeling? Adam said you were suffering from fatigue, that's why you slept so long_."

"_I'm not sleepy any more. I feel good_."

"_And your eyes?_" Eber thought for a moment.

"_I can't explain to you what I see. Can I show you?_" Sharon nodded and Eber sat down beside her on the dojo. Resting her head in the crook of Sharon's neck Eber breathed out deeply as Jesse would to phase and took hold of Sharon's hand.

They were stood in a room, as Adam and Jesse had been, but this room was obviously different. Whereas Jesse and Adam's memory rooms had extended out into a white expanse where memories grew old and faded, pushed to the very back of the room, Eber's did not. Even from where they stood in the very centre of the room the edges were visible. Dark looming walls which reached upwards with no visible ending. The walls had been moving slowly away as Eber's memory room filled with new memories made since the placement of that wall, but all that was beyond it was lost to her. Sharon spared the wall a glance and turned back to Eber who was enthusiastically searching though the memories, dodging the ones that swung past her at speed. She quickly found what she was looking for and called Sharon over.

"Last night I saw someone come into Sanctuary, I saw the shadows move with my normal eyes. And I was worried because Jesse got all tense and so my feral eyes... activated. How ever you're supposed to describe that. And this is what I saw." She took hold of Sharon's hand and dived into the memory. Sharon blinked for a moment, a strange type of brightness filling her eyes and making her want to squint. The world around her was coloured in yellow and bright sepia tones. A man that Sharon recognised as Brennan from the other's memories stood in front of her outlined so sharply it seemed you might be able to cut yourself on his edges. A door behind him showed a passageway with cars at the end. She could see the anger and confusion cross his face, the tension in his muscles. She stepped back and they both slipped back out of the memory.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Eber asked, as Sharon gasped.

Much of the rest of the day was spent in the main hall, with Adam and Sharon working on meditation techniques and mind exercises and Jesse and Eber working on more physical exercises. With no training Eber had always fought tooth and nail with anyone who came up against them. It had been effective, but Jesse hoped to provide her with a little more advanced fighting skills. If they were to join Mutant X they would need them.

Every so often they would see Brennan prowling the hallways of Sanctuary impatiently as if waiting for something.

"You're replacing them, aren't you Adam?" It only took to the end of the day to find out what he was waiting for. "We're nothing to you individually. It's all about the team. Shal and Emma are only just gone and you're trying to replace them with a couple of kids." Sighing, Adam turned from the computer console to face Brennan. He had known this was coming, he hadn't expected him to wait so long.

"Brennan, calm down and listen to me."

"No, Adam. You listen to me for once. This team is just that. A team. You don't make decisions for us without asking us first." Adam looked up as Jesse appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on?" He asked, sensing the tension in the room.

"Oh nothing." Brennan spat. "Adam's just trying to rule our lives again."

"Adam?"

"I'm trying to explain to Brennan how important the team is." Jesse looked quietly from one to the other.

"You're fighting over Sharon and Eber." He guessed correctly.

"I was going to talk to both of you before I did anything more than offer them training, Brennan."

"Yeah, you might have talked to us, but would it have been anything more than telling us that they would be joining us, no objections allowed?"

"I wouldn't do that..."

"Screw that, Adam. You're always doing that to us. Sticking us in situations without telling us all the facts, hiding things from us. What ulterior motive do you have this time eh?"

"Brennan, stop it. You're pushing this too far." Jesse warned.

"The team needs to be whole, Brennan. Especially now. We're too vulnerable as we are, we need to be complete and as strong as we can be."

"And you think two kids can make us strong!? One of them is deaf, for christ's sake. That's really gonna help the team."

"It's not their individual strength, it's the strength of the team as a whole. They need training, but we can give them that."

"Training is one thing Adam, but this is adopting orphans. You can't..."

"Don't tell me what I can't do Brennan." Adam shouted, his temper finally flaring up. "Shalimar and Jesse were both children when they came to live at Sanctuary. Just because we pulled your sorry ass off the streets doesn't mean we won't throw you back out there."

"Oh, so that's it now is it?" Brennan scoffed.

"There's more than one person I can think of who would be perfect for your place on Mutant X. I didn't choose to put you on this team, that was Emma. You..."

"STOP IT!" Sharon flinched as three sets of eyes caught hers, slamming her with images of the past. A team who had stood together, united in everything but blood. A family torn apart.

And for a moment they could have been fooled. Perhaps they had just been sleeping and their argument had woken them. Some big ruse, Shalimar's teasing grin, Emma's apologetic one.

But the intense brown eyes which would battle to outstare you were blue and now fixed to the floor, the hair a little too straight and the face behind her a little too dark. No, it wasn't them. The misplaced hope died quietly as they looked away from each other, embarrassed at the heights their argument had reached. Adam turned back first.

"I'm sorry. You have to understand, this isn't about you. We would have had to have done this anyway."

"Whatever you've been doing to me Adam, it's been opening me up. The memories that you're throwing around, you all reject them." Sharon explained. "You don't want to think about them. It's hurting you more than you would ever know. You have to accept the memories or they will destroy you. You need to remember the good things or all that they will ever mean for you is pain. It's hurting ME, and I'm not even connected to you, to them. I could feel it from my room."

"We didn't mean to wake you." Brennan apologised.

"We're going to leave tomorrow. Thank you for your offer Adam, but it's too early for you. You have a lot of things to sort out before you try and take on new people. You'll never have a stable group if you three can't act as a strong base for the newcomers. Thanks for what you've done for Eber, you've given her back something she didn't know was missing and she's very grateful." Sharon smiled. "We'll see you tomorrow." She said quietly before following Eber back to their room.

AN: I have decided I don't like how often this is referring back to 'Pain'. I think this will be the last time. Don't panic, this isn't the end!


	11. Part IX

Part IX  
  
~  
  
AN: so very sorry for the delay, too many other things going on at once! The weights are all guesses, so's not to offend Mr. Mulwray by underestimating his lifting power.  
  
~  
  
Adam caught up with Sharon and Eber outside their room.  
  
"Stay another day, please. You said I've opened you up, mentally, I need to show you how to bring that back in. I don't want you exposed to things you can't control if you're leaving." Sharon shared a moment's discussion with Eber before turning back to Adam.  
  
"OK, we'll stay tomorrow then."  
  
"I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to show you more."  
  
"This is the way it has to be."  
  
"Yes, I suppose it is."  
  
~  
  
Jesse yawned as he headed into the kitchen. It was early and all he wanted to think about was coffee. He glanced into the main hall as he walked past the door, seeing Eber on the dojo going through the moves he had shown her yesterday. He smiled to himself. He never thought he would be the one showing other people how to fight. He could still remember when Shalimar first took it upon herself to teach him. She had been so energetic, wondering why the poor boy couldn't do the things she could do. He could just about see Sharon sat behind Eber next to the meditation pool. She was facing away from the dojo and every so often she would turn and hold Eber's gaze for a moment, deep in telepathic discussion.  
  
"I heard you're staying a day longer." He greeted as he walked over.  
  
"Yes." Sharon replied. "Adam's teaching me some more control. When he gets up that is." She smiled.  
  
"Guess that means we get to spend some more time training." He said to Eber.  
  
~  
  
Jesse was demonstrating a throw to deflect an attack. It was a move that he had been very proud of when Shalimar had first taught him it. Eber had seen Brennan watching from the sidelines for a while and looked up curiously as he headed over.  
  
"Look, Jesse. You're doing this all wrong." Brennan pushed the young man out of the way. "Excuse me." He enunciated carefully to Eber before turning back to Jesse. "She's a feral, she doesn't need all this poncing about. Upper body strength." He said it as if it explained everything, turning back to Eber who was watching curious. "Throw your shoulder forward, like this." He demonstrated. "You take their weight over and then push forward as they fall." Nodding, she moved into the newly demonstrated position. "Jess?" Repeating his earlier attack Jesse found himself launched across the mats to land with an 'ooph' on the other side. "Oops." Brennan said, but Eber didn't see it, already at Jesse's side apologising profusely in clipped sign language. Jesse was up again quickly, laughing it off.  
  
"I'll let you check out her moves first next time, bro." He told Brennan as he headed back over. "I think I've done my shoulder in, can you show her a little more while I go and see Adam?"  
  
"But I can't sign." He complained, looking a little apprehensive.  
  
"She lip reads, you'll survive. Just make sure you're looking straight at her when you're talking." He laughed at the look on Brennan's face. "You're that scared of a girl, dude, you need to get out more often." Brennan looked at Jesse for a moment.  
  
"It's been a while since I've seen you laugh." He mused, quietly. His gaze dropped to the floor, ashamed of noticing and embarrassed about speaking it out loud.  
  
"It's time, Brennan. It's time to let them go or they'll never forgive us." He looked up and their gaze met for a minute.  
  
"Yeah. I guess so." He nodded, seeming to fill with energy at the decision that had been made deep within himself. "Go get your shoulder sorted man, I'll look after your kid."  
  
"You do that." Jesse grinned, seeing the change in his friend. Things were on the turn.  
  
~  
  
Brennan led Eber into the weights room. He shook his head as he looked at the bench press. He had been angry last time he'd used it. The weight on there was much too much for him to handle. It had been fortunate that he hadn't been able to get it off of the brackets, otherwise he might have broken some ribs. It hadn't improved his temper, but still, broken ribs wouldn't have helped either. He seemed to remember throwing the wrench that he used to put the weight disks on and off the bar with. Spotting a dint in the wall he walked over and found the wrench on the floor below it. He picked it up and turned to find the long bar, complete with weights, sitting on the floor behind the head of the long bench and Eber adjusting the brackets for her own arm length. He hadn't heard the bar hit the floor, which could only mean... he moved over and took a quick estimate of the weight on the bar. Over 100 kilos. Wow. He took a closer look. A hundred and twenty kilograms. About one and a half his body weight. It had to be three times hers. Or more.  
  
He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.  
  
"Did you lift that?" He asked, still looking for another answer. She nodded and moved around to the other bracket. She quickly set it to the same length as the other one and - as if it weighed nothing - lifted the bar back on and lay down beneath it.  
  
~  
  
Twenty minutes later - with a hundred and forty kilos on the bar and Eber still going strong, Brennan headed out into Sanctuary to look for more weights.  
  
"Adam, do you know what happened to the spare set of weights for the bench press?" He asked as he saw Adam appear out of the lab.  
  
"Not right now Brennan, I need to talk to you and Jesse." Brennan looked up from the box of junk he was excavating, hearing Adam's serious tone.  
  
"What's up?"  
  
"Can you get Jesse and meet me in the lab as soon as possible? Sharon is going to find Eber, they'll stay out of the way for a while." Now Brennan was really confused, but he had learned that normally if Adam was confusing people it was because something bad was going on and he couldn't find a simple way to explain it.  
  
"Sure. I'll go get Jesse now."  
  
~  
  
"Do you have any idea how strong that girl is, Adam? She has a hundred and forty kilos on that benchpress and she's barely making a noise." Jesse looked up as he followed Brennan into the room.  
  
"She doesn't make a noise anyway."  
  
"Yeah, but she STILL isn't making any noise." Jesse frowned for a moment before brushing it off as a Brennan-ism.  
  
"What did you call us over for, Adam."  
  
"Have either of you ever heard of the Hellen Reiler case? It's possible it was too long ago for either of you to remember it. It must have been three or four years ago."  
  
"The name rings some bells, but I can't remember what the case was about." Jesse replied. Brennnan just shook his head.  
  
"Not many people remember it because no pictures of Hellen Reiler herself were ever published."  
  
"That's odd. Normally everyone's bursting with pictures for publicity. The papers, the news."  
  
"This girl killed seven people and was put on death row at the age of 16."  
  
"Sixteen? Yikes." Brennan exclaimed.  
  
"Yeah, that's what the public said. They all demanded that she went to counselling and therapy as an alternative."  
  
"That sounds fair." Jesse put it.  
  
"She killed two therapists and one counsellor. The minder whose care she was under was admitted to hospital with serious skull fractures. She had her life support turned off by family a couple of months later making her the eleventh victim." Adam sighed and put his head in his hands for a moment as if composing himself. "Unfortunately the case was more serious than they ever made out. The reason that no one was ever allowed to get pictures was that they were lying about her age."  
  
"How old was she really?" Jesse asked weakly.  
  
"Eight."  
  
"That can't be right." Jesse retorted. Adam handed him a picture of a young Asian girl behind bars, clearly no older than ten. She wore an orange coverall which was clearly several sizes too big for her and she clung to the bars as if she thought she could rip them apart with her bear hands if she shook hard enough. The resemblance struck Jesse immediately. "You have to be kidding. Four years, right? So that would make her what, 12? She's older than that, it's just a fluke."  
  
"You see it too?" Adam asked quietly.  
  
"See what?" Brennan asked. He was handed the photo.  
  
"The computer targeted them as a physical match, but the computer isn't always right. The computer does have her age down as twelve though." Adam explained.  
  
"You're telling me I've been lifting weights with a serial killer all afternoon? A FERAL serial killer!?"  
  
"She doesn't remember this, and she won't if we don't tell her. I don't think Sharon knows either. She escaped from death row on the day of her execution and disappeared without a trace. The body count doesn't get any higher. We can only assume that she was picked straight away by the guys who were testing on them."  
  
"What do you think the likelihood is that Sharon will ever succeed in accessing those memories?"  
  
"I don't know. She's surprisingly skilled at controlling memory for a rare skill and she's persistant. I don't want to risk it. We'll have to tell her."  
  
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Jesse pressed.  
  
"They're leaving tomorrow morning, Jesse. I don't want her accidentally causing the release of a serial killer, not after all that's happened to them over the last couple of years to fuel her anger. No, we need to tell her, and as soon as we can." 


	12. Part X

Part X

AN: uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/fic_writers — Fic Writers Anonymous - I couldn't resist. Come join, please, so I'm not stuck talking to my other muse — she's insane. 

"Why are you showing me this, telling me this?" Shraron demanded, placing the photo on the table and looking away as if denying its presence could make what they had told her less real. "We're going tomorrow, we're not going to be in your way anymore. What could you possibly get out of telling me all this?"

"We needed to warn you Sharon. I don't want you to be at risk, I want you to stop trying to return Eber's memories."

"You think I could release this" She gestured at the picture. "Again?"

"I think she would be worse now if she was returned to that state of mind. When she was younger the only motives she had were her own fear and anger. Think about all that has happened to her since then to urge her on."

"You don't understand, I can't stop myself, it's automatic. The first thing I do when I enter Eber's memory room is test the wall. It's such a presence that I can't help myself."

"Can't you just avoid going into the memory room?" Brennan asked.

"Yes, but I'm not going to be able to hide this from her easily."

"Why not?"

__

"When we talk telepathically, what do you hear?" She asked Jesse.

"You of course, talking to me." Adam and Brennan looked up, not having heard the question.

__

"And that is all you hear. Have you tried talking back to me?"

"Replying telepathically? Don't you just pick that up anyway?"

"No, it takes practice to be able to reply in kind. Practice like that makes you more open to what I say. Not just to what you might hear me say but other things that I might think and project accidentally." She spoke so that they could all hear her.

"So you're saying that because Eber's being talking with you telepathically for a long time she can effectively read your mind when ever you talk."

"Not just when we talk, whenever our eyes meet. This isn't something with an easy fix."

__

"It's not true. I won't believe it." She repeated to herself as she walked along the corridors, wishing she believed herself.

__

"What isn't true?" Eber asked, appearing before her. Sharon gasped, spinning away from Eber's curious eyes and dashing from the room. Confused, Eber followed, catching hold of Sharon's arm for a moment to slow her.

[What's going on?] She asked when Sharon refused to meet her eyes.

[Sorry.] Sharon replied, pulling out of her grasp and running from the room.

__

"What have you done." Blue eyes met blue eyes across the room.

"I don't know, what have we done?" Jesse asked.

__

"You don't even see it do you? We can't talk anymore. I'm scared of hurting her by showing her what I know, and I'm hurting her because I can't even explain why I can't talk to her. You've destroyed out friendship. We only have each other, do you understand that? We're supposed to be leaving tomorrow."

"Do you always talk telepathically when you're angry?"

__

"It's easier to find the words."

"What are you going to do?"

__

"Maybe find a way to erase the last day and leave when I decide rather than listening to Adam."

"When _you_ decide?" Jesse enquired, curious at her phrasing. "What did Eber have to say about your decision to leave? I didn't have a chance to talk to her before you stormed off last night." She sighed.

__

"She wanted to give you another chance. She wanted to stay. She doesn't understand the problems we're causing for you. She wants a home."

"And you were going to take her away from that? Why?"

__

"Because I can't cope with the memories you're throwing around. She may be happy here, but I can't live with three other people's memories all the time. I'm too open for that."

"Does Eber not affect you like that?"

__

"She doesn't have that many memories in the first place. She's quiet compared to you, to anyone else."

"Why do you keep trying to bring her memories back then? Surely it would be better for you if you left her as she is."

__

"You think I could be that evil, leave her with no knowledge of her past just because it would be better for me? You've asked me to stop and you've given me a good reason, for that I'll avoid doing anything. But I couldn't do it just for me."

"But you wanted to take her away from here, where she's happy." Jesse put in. Leaving her with that thought he walked out.


	13. Part XI

Part XI

Eber was pacing the room with a clipped, tense stride, deep in thought. She paused in one corner of the room and let out a feral growl. The first sound he had heard from her, the growl made Jesse jump, and suddenly Eber was spinning towards him, body tense and ready for a fight. She stopped inches from him and he held still, suddenly scared of the small feral. She had killed, so young and yet a killer. The thought seemed silly as she saw who it was she relaxed, stepping back out of his space and looking at him quizzically. This was Eber, they had only just met and he felt like he could trust her, rely on her in a fight. This news hadn't changed who she was, only who he perceived her as.

[You have a funny look on your face.] She told him.

[I've never heard you make a sound before.]

[I didn't know you were there. What did I do?]

[You growled, like a big cat.]

[I've never heard myself, or a big cat.] She laughed, a strange silent laugh that lit up her face. [Normally I can stop myself, but it takes concentration and my mind is on other things.] She explained, the humour gone, her face serious. [It's hard to know when I'm making noise, so it's even harder to stop myself. Do you understand?] He nodded.

[It wasn't a bad thing, just unexpected.]

[It's a bad thing when it can show you up when you're hiding. We are always hiding, and running.] She looked sad, almost ready to cry.

[Adam has told Sharon something, and asked her to keep it from you. It's hard for her, she's never had to keep anything from you before. That's why she's acting strangely.] He explained, hoping it would be enough.

[Why would she keep anything from me.] She looked confused. [There have never been any secrets between us.]

[For now it is best, you have to trust me. You trust me?]

[Of course.] She replied, face open and honest. How could she be a killer?

"Sharon?" Brennan asked as he saw the psionic piling her few possessions into the bag the two had brought with them. "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving." She answered calmly.

"Why, I thought you were both staying until tomorrow morning?"

"No. No, I can't do this any more. Eber can't leave, she needs someone to talk for her. Jesse can sign, she'll be fine here, and you can make sure nothing happens to her." The calm facade was slipping, tears starting to fall. "I'm a risk to her. I can't be a risk to my best friend."

"So you're just leaving. Running away from her, just like that. You think that's going to make things better?"

"It'll be safer for her. I don't want to hurt her." She was sobbing now, still pushing things into the small bag. Brennan grabbed hold of her wrist to stop her and found his head spinning so fast he thought he might fall with the dizziness.

And then it stopped.

He opened his eyes to bright light, confusing in its intensity. He squinted until his eyes adapted, and then he was confused.

"You IDIOT! Don't touch anything, don't you dare touch anything." Sharon was looking panicked as they stood in the middle of the memory room, the memories swirling around them. He watched a single sphere, like an oversized marble, as it rotated around them in a small circle.

"What do you mean?" He asked absently as he continued tracking the one sphere. Looking inside of the shape, movement seemed to crystallise for him, showing him a moving picture of light and distant sound. He pointed at the shape, looking back at Sharon. "This is one of my memories isn't it."

"Yes, well done. Ten out of ten for observation to the elemental, now what do you think we should do, huh? I could jump out now and leave us both with nightmares of whichever memory you happen to hit on the way out for the next few months, or we could wait until someone else comes along and pulls us out. Not that they would know how, because only Eber knows that and she's not allowed in here at the moment just in case we release a homicidal maniac which has been hiding behind her memory wall for four years." Her voice, which had been slowly raising in pitch and speed throughout the tirade, broke as she began to cry again. Brennan watched for a moment before realising what was going on and pulling her into a hug.

"Hey, shush. You're going to have to run that by me again slowly."

"I have to have someone on the outside to pull me out of a read. I can't do it by myself unless it's Eber I'm reading, and I wouldn't fall into a read with her anyway. The memories won't let me out on my own in a normal mind."

"Why can you pull out of 'reads' with Eber?" He asked.

"In Eber's mind, about there" She gestured to a point about three metres away from where they stood. "There is a wall where her memories end, when she was given the drug to take away her memory. It makes it easy for me to control because there's fewer memories. Your mind stretches out there, there's a long way to go to the edge, the boundary. I can't control that many memories at once."

"OK, so we wait. Eber's a resourceful girl, she can explain to someone else what to do."

"What if they don't come?"

"I'll take my chances with the nightmares."

Eber stepped into the room and stopped short as she found Sharon and Brennan fixed in place, a frown on Sharon's face clear to her from where she stood. It was quite obvious what had happened. Brennan had gone to touch Sharon for what ever reason, not realising what would happen. Reaching out to touch Sharon to help her pull out of the read, Eber found herself stopped short by a hand on her arm. She looked up to find Jesse at her side.

[What is it?] She asked, turning back to him.

[You can't go in to her mind.] He said, looking apologetic.

[Why not!] She asked angrily.

[Can I do what you were about to do?] She shrugged in response. [What were you doing?]

[Going to pull her out, she can't do it herself.] She explained.

[Pull her out? Like you did with me.] She nodded, frowning still. [Can I do it?] She shrugged again. [Can I try?] With no further explanation she took hold of his hand and placed it on Sharon's neck.

He opened his eyes inside Brennan's memory room with Sharon and Brennan both looking on, curious.

"I think I'm here to pull you out." He offered.

"You think?" Brennan asked.

"Well I wasn't offered much of an explanation, so I'm not quite sure how to do it."

"Think about your feet and step towards Jesse." Sharon told Brennan.

"My feet?" He asked, incredulous.

"Yes, your feet. You know, the things on the ends of your legs?"

"I know what my feet are, why am I thinking about them?"

"Look at your feet now, do they feel odd?"

"They feel like I'll get pins and needles when I get up."

"Now think about your real feet, not the ones you see." Brennan frowned, but stepped forward just the same. Jesse watched open-mouthed as he seemed to pop out of existence, and the room around them started to dissolve.

He opened his eyes to see the other three watching him curiously.

"What?" He asked.

"You looked like you were asleep for a minute." Brennan laughed. 

"Brennan, Jesse, can I have you in the lab please." Adam's voice came over the comm. links.

"We're coming Adam." Jesse responded, offering Sharon and Eber a smile before following Brennan out of the room. Alone, Eber remembered what Jesse had said and fought not to meet Sharon's eyes as she asked.

[Why are you packing?] Sharon looked about her guiltily.

[We're leaving tomorrow, remember?]

[Where are my things?]

[I was just getting them.]

[What has Adam told you? Why would you leave without me?] Eber asked, tears pricking at the back of her eyes. Sharon sat down on the bed, struggling for composure and fighting to still her shaking hands.

[Something about your past. Something I don't want you to know, because it might hurt you. Do you understand? It doesn't change anything, I just need to learn how to keep my thoughts quiet when I talk to you.]  
[Why are you leaving? Can't Adam teach you that?] Sharon sighed, looking at the bag beside her for a moment before taking a seat on the bed.

[I'm not leaving. I just needed a moment.] She laughed softly. [Can we do this? Talk like this until I learn some control?]

[Forever if we have to. Don't leave me.] Sharon pulled Eber into a hug.

[Let's go and see what the others are doing. We have to ask for an extension on our training.]

AN: Believe me when I say this is going somewhere, it's just taking a while to get there.


	14. Part XII

Part XII

The others looked up as Sharon and Eber entered the lab.

"There's someone here who claims to know you." Adam told them, handing them a piece of paper. "They found one of our safe houses and they're asking for safe passage in exchange for information." The paper was a print out of a surprisingly clear surveillance picture of two men and a woman who were looking directly at the camera. "Do you recognise them?" Adam asked. Eber turned to Sharon who was looking pale.

"I know these two." Sharon pointed out one man and the woman. "She's a strong telepath and he's got stealth capabilities. They were prisoners with us at the labs we escaped from."

"Can we trust them?"

"I think so. But they might have been sent to bring us back. I I don't know."

"OK, well if we send all four of you in. Brennan and Jesse can stick around as your backup. There's only three of them and if we know two of their mutancies then we're ahead of the game aren't we."

Three faces looked up as Brennan stepped into the room. Seeing no immediate sign of aggression from the ones sat in the comfy chairs around the huge room Brennan stepped in and beckoned the others to follow him. There was a moment of whispering and all three stood from their chairs as Eber walked into the room, but they were hushed as the new comers descended the stairs.

Taking up positions facing each other the two groups faced off, all three new mutants who had invaded the safe house eyed Eber warily.

"She hasn't been cured." The woman psionic said at last, smirking lightly. "She doesn't remember." The others seemed to release a relieved breath in unison. Sharon looked between Jesse and Brennan, worriedly. If these people wanted to tell them all about Eber's past she didn't want Eber listening in. Partly because she didn't want to risk that the information might be enough to break down the barrier, but mostly because she didn't want to risk hurting her with that knowlegde. Brennan nodded his understanding and tugged at Eber's shirt sleeve, leading her away into the back of the safe house where he could listen in and she wouldn't be able to know what they were talking about. The others looked confused at their departure, but turned to Sharon.

"She's not what she appears Sharon." The woman said urgently. "You have to stop trying to cure her memory. It's dangerous for you."

"You're a bit late with that piece of information." Jesse replied. "But luckily for you, you don't have to pay anything to get into the underground. We're happy to hide you." The woman looked into his eyes for a moment and Jesse got the feeling that his mind was being leafed through like a book. He shook his head and looked away.

"He's telling the truth, they know about the little one's past. But they don't know about what happened in Telmet." She told the others.

"Telmet?" Sharon asked. "It sounds familiar, but I can't place it."

"You spent most of your life there, kid. It's the labs that you escaped from. 'Telmet industries'." She sneered. "Sick bastards the lot of them. Not a care for the humans that they killed and messed up."

"What happened in Telmet?" Jesse asked.

"They tested mind drugs on her, memory suppressants. It wasn't testing her, it was testing the psionics that they had in their possession and the drugs themselves."

"You mean this wasn't the first time she'd had her memory suppressed?" Sharon asked.

"No. She was too dangerous as she was so they tried all sorts of things. They were looking for a memory suppressant that a psionic couldn't break through for uses in other places. They wanted to be able to say it was tried and tested. They were worried that it wouldn't be a fair experiment though, because the psionic wasn't the same each time. The first few drugs they tried were broken easily but as they used stronger ones it took longer"

"Why wasn't it the same psionic each time?" Sharon asked.

"Every time the psionic succeeded they released Hellen." The woman sighed, as if that explained everything.

"And?" Sharon pushed.

"She killed them." She replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Every one. You've only survived because the suppressant they used was the strongest yet and it's stronger than you. Don't get me wrong, you're very good. I thought you might do it once or twice, that's why I had to warn you."

"How did you escape?" Jesse asked, giving Sharon a moment to get over her shock as he watched her pale.

"Tommy here," The woman gestured to the man that Sharon hadn't known. "Is a long distance telepath. He scanned Sharon as she ran to find out how she'd done it - escaped. The scientists wanted him to tell them where you were hiding so that they could go and pick you up, but he told them you were out of range. You owe him your freedom kid, and we owe ours to you, so we're even."

All of them looked up as there was a bang outside the door. A second bang signalled an explosion that took out the main door, allowing several armed soldiers through into the safe house. Sharon turned to Jesse, panic in her eyes.

"It's the men from the labs, the ones that were chasing us before"

"Don't worry. We won't let anything happen to you." He assured her as the men streamed into the building, falling into stances with their guns aimed at the four that were visible - one of the men going stealth and Brennan and Eber still out of sight. There was a moment's silence as the dust cleared and then bullets started flying.

AN: Action next chapter, Promise.


	15. Part XIII

Part XIII

AN: SO sorry for the wait everyone. This story got lost and forgotten for a while there.

As soon as the shots started flying Jesse was there, massed and covering as much of Sharon and the other two mutants as he could without splitting himself apart. Brennan pushed Eber further into the corner and reached around the pillar, letting out a stream of electricity. His first shot missed and he saw the male telepath fall at a shot from one of the gunss, a small feather sprouting from his shoulder assuring Brennan that they were using tranquillisers and not bullets. Brennan's second shot hit its target, racing along the metal walkway, throwing several people onto the floor below and knocking several more unconscious.

But more people were flooding in, abandoning the weapons in favour of hand-to-hand combat. The stealth mutant fell as a man rammed into him, knocking him head over heels and out of his stealth mode. A clean shot from another of the tranquilliser guns and he was out cold. Seeing this Brennan threw himself into the fight, Eber following close behind him.

Sharon had a lot of practice in using her psionic powers to protect herself against these people. They always and unerringly tried first to grab hold of her and she was thrown with them into their own memory room. By forcefully pushing one of their memories towards her attacker in this place they were propelled out of her mind and usually into unconsciousness or at the very least into disorientation. This method had already dispatched three would-be attackers, but she was tiring and it was taking more and more effort to push those memories away.

She looked up to find Jesse massed over her to deflect a punch, Eber holding her own against two men and three still forms being carried out of the door. She cried out, trying to warn the others that the mutants were being carried away, but two hands grabbed her arms and two more her shoulders and she was dragged back under, feeling as though she would drown in sheer exhaustion.

Eber saw four men take hold of Sharon and saw the dazed looked that covered their features as the froze in place, dragged into their own memory rooms. Knowing that Sharon wouldn't be able to cope with expelling four minds at once, Eber fought her way across the room towards her. Not hearing Brennan's shout of warning she reached out, touching Sharon's face to fall into the memory rooms with the others.

The four men stood at points around the room, each one only able to see his own memories circling around him and Sharon, who lay still on the floor as Eber stepped into the room. She, as Sharon, could see and feel the effects of the culmination of four minds worth of memories circling them. The wind that each memory caused as it rushed by. Each person's memory was represented differently, as squares, spheres, doorways or windows. Ignoring the activity around her Eber turned to Sharon, lifting her upright and cheering internally as she opened her eyes to look around her dazed.

"There's four of them." Eber said as Sharon's eyes widened at the sight. Taking her hand, Sharon was pulled onto her feet to face the four who all watched her warily, flinching every time a memory brushed past them. At least she didn't have to worry about following them through jumps, Sharon mused, it didn't seem to work when there was more than one of them.

"I've never done four before." She said, eyes still wide as she tried to watch them all at once.

"I'm here." Eber assured her. Nodding and taking hold of Eber's hand once more, Sharon took in one deep breath and then another, watching to see which memories in each of the four would respond to her. Targeting just those few that responded she breathed out, flinging her hands out wide, throwing the memories fast and hard out towards their owners. The men popped out of existance one by one, but instead of following their owners the memories flooded inwards, throwing Eber back and colliding with Sharon, filling her.

She opened her eyes to feel her mind buzzing with power. Eber lay beside her and it was Eber's memory room that she found surrounding her. Imposing as ever the wall in Eber's mind stood and the raw power of the memories inside of her called. She knew what to do.

Spilling their power from her like a ripple forming around a stone dropped in water she watched it flow from her. Four waves of pure power, one after the other, slammed in to the great wall and brick by brick it fell. And the memories, trapped behind it for so long, raced from their broken down prison and flooded back into Eber, back into their rightful home. Sharon fell to her knees, the power expended, and cried out, knowing what she had done.

And Hellen awoke


End file.
